


Who knows, if she never showed up, what could have been.

by kira_khaleesi



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Ben Solo Deserved Better, F/M, Ficlet, Happily Ever After, POV Ben Solo, aka no TROS, folklore fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:26:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25532068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kira_khaleesi/pseuds/kira_khaleesi
Summary: Ben reflects on the events in his life that led him to his happy ending on Naboo.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 12
Kudos: 23
Collections: Kira's Songfics, Reylo/Folklore Drabble Collection





	Who knows, if she never showed up, what could have been.

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the last great american dynasty  
> 

The lakeside manor at Varykino sat empty for more than fifty years, until he arrived with Rey. 

It’s a place he had heard of, his biological grandmother’s family home, but never set foot in. Ben’s childhood had been too busy, too fraught with events and charities and arguments behind closed doors about the voice in his head that he didn’t understand. He was just a boy. 

A boy that was torn in a thousand different directions. 

Ben was never sure if his parents really loved him - or, he knew they did _sometimes_ , but he wasn’t sure that they _always_ did. 

He figured they felt the same way about each other. 

Leia Organa, hero of the Rebellion and heir to a political dynasty. People admired her to her face and whispered behind her back.

_Of all the men she could have chosen, why a smuggler?_

Han Solo was also a war hero, but people chose the story they want to believe.

Ben knew his mother loved his father. He could see it in the way her gaze softened when he called her Princess and the playful frown when his stories went off the rails. But Ben was also observant enough to see what many did not.

Perhaps, during the war, their compatibility was more obvious. In the world Ben grew up in, however, the post-war world of the New Republic in which Han and Leia were married, was much different. 

They did not belong to the same worlds anymore, and sometimes, it seemed that they did not belong together either.

_It’s such a shame_ , they would murmur, _that a woman of her stature, and Organa, would sully her own bloodline like that._

Bloodlines caused Ben nothing but trouble his entire life. 

At home, people were unsure how to treat him. 

At the Jedi temple, people were confident in their assessment of him.

The young boy with mighty Skywalker blood; the next in line, bearing the weight of the Skywalker Jedi dynasty on his skinny shoulder. He was equally revered and feared, friendships few and far between.

And then, someone - an enemy of his mother’s, with nothing but the destruction of House Organa as their end goal, dropped a bomb. 

The truth of the Skywalker bloodline. With the blood of a tyrant and war criminal running through her veins, Leia Organa was not to be trusted.

_There goes the last great Alderaanian dynasty_. 

When the news reached the temple, any reverence the fellow students held for Ben was gone. Fear became all he had. 

He embraced it for a while. Ben instilled the same fear he felt inside himself in those who surrounded him, and it worked. He had power beyond imagining.

And yet the whispers continued.

_So sad, what happened to the Organa-Solo boy - to have your only living heir die like that._

He pretended that he didn’t care about it, being the last of his family. 

_Maybe it’s a good thing, after all, what good can the descendants of Darth Vader really do the galaxy?_

With his helmet to hide the pain, he channeled the hurt outward and hurt others. 

And then one day, she showed up.

Looking back on it all, Ben knows that he has her to thank for the way things unfolded. The path he had been on held nothing for him but suffering, and he had resigned himself to it, until Rey held out her hand and told him that it wasn’t too late. 

The cracks in his resolve only widened when she arrived at his door, offering her help and expecting nothing in return. Rey revealed the true nature of the master he had placed so much faith in and dug up the feelings he had tried so hard to bury inside. 

They talk about it a lot; on the _Falcon_ , on Ajan Kloss, while walking in the orchards of Naboo, and tonight, on the balcony as they watch the sun set over the lake. 

Ben expresses his undying gratitude that Rey saved him from the path he started himself on, and she steels her gaze before placing her calloused hand on his cheek. 

“You saved yourself, _cyare_ ,” Rey smiles softly, “all I did was help.”

Pulling Rey into his arms, Ben kisses her cheek as he looks over the lake. They have a lifetime of agreeing to disagree on how they got here. In the end, he doesn’t really care who saved who, or why things unfolded the way they did, or how it all could have been different. Because the end result is this, them, together and happy. 

The other possibilities are irrelevant because in this lifetime, Ben is with Rey, and that is all that matters.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter [ @OctopusSoap ](https://twitter.com/OctopusSoap)
> 
> check out the other pieces inspired by Taylor's _Red_ album  
>  **Completed:**  
> [ All Too Well ](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Reylo_Red/works/23312638)  
> [ Begin Again ](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Reylo_Red/works/23191651)  
> [ Stay Stay Stay ](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Reylo_Red/works/23299768)  
> [ State of Grace ](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Reylo_Red/works/23174839)  
> [ Holy Ground ](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Reylo_Red/works/24064783)  
> [ Everything Has Changed ](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Reylo_Red/works/23517154)  
> [ I Almost Do ](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Reylo_Red/works/23224756)
> 
> **WIP:**  
> [ i'm telling you/i'm telling you ](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Reylo_Red/works/24916861) (We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together)
> 
> and other, non Taylor related works:
> 
>  **Canonverse**  
>  Completed:  
> [ Fall Into Me Babe ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25041910)  
> [ As the Force Wills It (a tros fix it) ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22202533)  
> [ this boy wasn't meant for lovin' ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24139000)  
> [ a crack fic ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24022474)  
> [ Tears in Rain ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23904049)  
> [ our love ain't water under the bridge ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23826646)  
> [ Traditional ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23199568)  
> WIPs:  
> [ What You Take With You ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25089400)  
> [ Nobody Gets Left Behind ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24146353) (Leia POV)  
> [ Part of Your World ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23578291) (a gender-swapped Ponyo AU)


End file.
